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Doubtless there are men of great parts that are guilty of
downright bashfulness, that by a strange hesitation and
reluctance to speak murder the finest and most elegant thoughts
and render the most lively conceptions flat and heavy.
Author: Unattributed Author
Source: in "The Tatler", no. 252
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I have but nine-pence in ready money, but I can draw for a
thousand pounds.
Author: Joseph Addison
Source: to a lady who complained of his having talked little in company, see "Boswell's Life of Johnson"
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And let him be sure to leave other men their turns to speak.
Author: Francis Bacon
Source: Essays--Civil and Moral--Of Discourse (no. 32)
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Discretion of speech is more than eloquence; and to speak
agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good
words or in good order.
Author: Francis Bacon
Source: Essays--Of Discourse
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Though I say't that should not say't.
Author: Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
Source: Wit at Several Weapons (act II, sc. 2)
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Speak boldly, and speak truly, shame the devil.
Author: Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
Source: Wit Without Money (act IV, sc. 4)
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Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye
may know how ye ought to answer every man.
Author: Bible
Source: Colossians (ch. IV, v. 6)
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Miss not the discourse of the elders.
Author: Bible
Source: Ecclesiasticus (ch. VII, v. 9)
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Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of
speech:
And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the
children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that
which is abolished:
But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the
same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which
vail is done away in Christ.
Author: Bible
Source: II Corinthians (ch. III, v. 12)
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But though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge; but we have
been throughly made manifest among you in all things.
Author: Bible
Source: II Corinthians (ch. XI, v. 6)
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Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of
unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean
lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
Author: Bible
Source: Isaiah (ch. VI, v. 5)
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Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did
their fathers to the false prophets.
Author: Bible
Source: Luke (ch. VI, v. 26)
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But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do:
for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Author: Bible
Source: Matthew (ch. VI, v. 7)
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O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good
things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth
speaketh.
Author: Bible
Source: Matthew (ch. XII, v. 34)
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A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up
anger.
Author: Bible
Source: Proverbs (ch. 15, v. 1)
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I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your
flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to
uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your
members servants to righteousness unto holiness.
Author: Bible
Source: Romans (ch. VI, v. 19)
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To return to the subject. (Literally, "to our mutton.")
[Fr., Revenons a nos moutons.]
Author: Pierre Blanchet
Source: Pierre Pathelin (III, 2)
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That which is repeated too often becomes insipid and tedious.
[Fr., Tout ce qu'on dit de trop est fade et rebutant.]
Author: Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Source: L'Art Poetique (I, 61)
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Let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.
Author: Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Source: L'Art Poetique (I, 61)
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Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free
speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is
the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational
fears.
Author: Louis D. Brandeis
Source: in the case of "Whitney v. California"
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For brevity is very good,
Where we are, or are not understood.
Author: Samuel Butler (1)
Source: Hudibras (pt. I, canto I, l. 669)
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He who does not make his words rather serve to conceal than
discover the sense of his heart deserves to have it pulled out
like a traitor's and shown publicly to the rabble.
Author: Samuel Butler (1)
Source: The Modern Politician
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His speech was a fine sample, on the whole,
Of rhetoric, which the learn'd call "rigmarole."
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Don Juan (canto I, st. 174)
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The heart seldom feels what the mouth expresses.
[Fr., Le coeur sent rarement ce que la bouche exprime.]
Author: Jean Galbert de Campistron
Source: Pompeia (XI, 5)
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Speak not at all, in any wise, till you have somewhat to speak;
care not for the reward of your speaking, but simply and with
undivided mind for the truth of your speaking.
Author: Thomas Carlyle
Source: Essays--Biography
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The most precious things in speech are the pauses.
Author: Sir Ralph Richardson
Source: None
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Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.
Author: Buddha
Source: None
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It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
Author: Mark Twain
Source: None
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Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.
Author: William Safire
Source: None
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People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
Author: Kierkegaard
Source: None
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Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.
Author: Gore Vidal
Source: None
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It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.
Author: Mark Twain
Source: None
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Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.
Author: Martin Fraquhar Tupper
Source: None
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Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.
Author: Thomas Carlyle
Source: None
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Free speech is intended to protect the controversial and even outrageous word; and not just comforting platitudes too mundane to need protection.
Author: General Colin Powell
Source: None
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Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.
Author: Bergen Evans
Source: None
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People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
Author: Kierkegaard
Source: None
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Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language.
Author: Alfred North Whitehead
Source: None
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The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.
Author: Oliver Goldsmith
Source: None
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Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.
Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes
Source: None
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When you have spoken the word, it reigns over you. When it is unspoken you reign over it.
Author: Arabian Proverb
Source: None
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Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel.
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: None
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Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.
Author: Robert Frost
Source: None
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It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
Author: Mark Twain
Source: None
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Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.
Author: Otto Von Bismarck
Source: None
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